


When In Vegas

by katling



Series: Tony Stark Bingo [31]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, It's Not Good, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Wedding, M/M, Pre-Canon, Young IronHusbands, don't drink this much kids, hangovers, i think you can see where this is going, the aftermath of drunkness, they're both idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22491421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katling/pseuds/katling
Summary: Tony's birthday celebrations take a turn he never expected. He's not complaining though.Written for the Tony Stark Bingo - Card 3054, Square T1: Waking Up Married
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark Bingo [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1270763
Comments: 20
Kudos: 687
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	When In Vegas

The first thing Tony wanted to do when he woke up was go back to sleep. His head felt there was a very small man wielding a very large hammer working diligently away in there, his mouth tasted like something had died in it and he didn’t think he was at either Malibu or MIT. He had no idea where he was or what he’d done the previous night, other than he was _mostly_ sure they’d been celebrating his twenty-second birthday, and frankly, going to sleep and dealing with all of this much, much later seemed ideal. He was, in fact, just about to do that when he realised two things – the first was that there was an arm thrown over his middle and a warm body tucked up behind him and the second was that there was something on his left hand.

He prised his eyes opened just enough to stare at his hand. It took more time than he cared to think about for what he was seeing to sink in. 

He was wearing a wedding ring. 

Gold, classy, pretty expensive from what he could tell but definitely a wedding ring.

“What the fuck?” he whispered as he stared at the ring.

The person behind him – presumably the one he’d married – shifted and muttered something under their breath and Tony froze. He knew that voice. He wriggled around until he could look over his shoulder and had it confirmed. He wriggled some more until he was facing the other man and then he poked at his should with one finger until he showed signs of waking up.

“Rhodey bear,” Tony hissed so as not to aggravate either of their headaches.

“G’way, Tones,” Rhodey muttered without opening his eyes. He seemed determined not to surface any further than he absolutely had to.

Tony looked down and saw a matching ring on Rhodey’s hand and he poked his… husband(?) again. “Rhodey! Why are we married?”

At first he thought Rhodey had fallen asleep again but then his eyes opened and he stared at Tony. 

“What?”

Tony held up his left hand then pointed at Rhodey’s left hand. “Look!”

Rhodey blinked as he took in the matching rings. He frowned slightly then his face cleared. “Huh.”

Tony squawked. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

“We’re in Vegas, Tones,” Rhodey said as he tried to blink himself more awake. “I’m pretty sure we can get it annulled quickly and quietly.”

Tony tried to hide the spike of hurt that dismissive sentence sent through him. He didn’t feel that way about Rhodey. Rhodey was his friend, his brother and so what if he’d thought there might be more a few years ago. He’d been young(er) and stupid and had no idea what a healthy relationship looked like, let alone knew that people could be affectionate without it involving sex. It had just been a stupid crush and it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he was _in love_ with Rhodey or anything.

He shifted and sat up as a prelude to getting out of bed but then his eyes went wide as certain parts of his body told him what else they’d gotten up to the previous night.

“Um,” he said, looking everywhere except at Rhodey’s face. “I thought a marriage couldn’t be annulled if it had been… um… consummated.”

Silence came from the other person in the bed and Tony peeked over his shoulder to try and figure out what was going through Rhodey’s mind. There wasn’t much indication. Rhodey’s expression was very neutral.

“We… had sex?” he finally said.

Tony nodded. “Um… yes.”

“Did I… hurt you?”

Tony shook his head vigorously then moaned and clutched at it. Rhodey was sitting up in a second, wincing at the pain in his own head but then ignoring it to catch hold of Tony and help steady him.

“Didn’t hurt me,” Tony said once the urge to vomit had faded. “Just feels… like it was… good.”

“Right,” Rhodey said, his tone utterly blank. “Okay. That’s… that’s good.”

Even years later, Tony would never be able to say what prompted his next words, just that they escaped before he could think better of it.

“I don’t want to get a divorce.”

Rhodey blinked and stared at him. Tony shifted and looked away but Rhodey curled his fingers around his chin to turn his head back. Tony resolutely kept his eyes down to where he was playing with his wedding ring.

“Look at me, Tones.”

His head felt like it weighed a ton as he raised it. He didn’t want to see Rhodey’s expression or hear how kindly he was about to reject him. But he did it anyway and was surprised to see the look of fond exasperation on Rhodey’s face.

“Tones?”

“It’s nothing. Ignore me,” he said hurriedly, looking away again.

“No,” Rhodey said firmly then his voice softened. “Tony, look at me.”

Tony swallowed hard and did as he’d been told. Rhodey’s smile was gentle and wry and when he reached out to cradle his face with one hand, Tony honestly didn’t know what to do.

“I thought it was a crush,” Rhodey said. “That’s why I ignored it. You were fifteen and the way you were brought up…” He grimaced and shook his head. “I thought it was just a crush on the first person to show you a bit of affection with no strings attached.” Tony had been dropping his eyes again, in mortification, but Rhodey ducked his head so that he could still catch his eye. “It wasn’t, was it?”

Tony gave a half shrug. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t feel the same way. We’ll get divorced. Obie’ll make sure it doesn’t get into the papers so your career will be fine.”

“Fuck my career,” Rhodey said and Tony stared at him, wide-eyed and shocked.

“Rhodey…”

Rhodey scowled and shook his head. “No. I don’t give a damn about that. They’re not going to kick me out anyway,” he said cynically. “They think I’m the only one who can keep you under control.” His derisive snort took all the hurt out of those words. “When we both know you do what you damn well please and I join in because it’s fun.”

Tony gave a small tentative smile. “I do listen to you.”

“I know.” Rhodey shook his head. “Tony, you were _fifteen_ and I thought it was a crush, so I ignored it. Didn’t even think about it because you were a _kid_.”

“So, you…?” Tony frowned. “I’m confused.”

Rhodey sighed. “Tones, do you remember your eighteenth birthday?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, confused. “You were really grouchy.”

“Yeah, because I got home and realised you were _eighteen_ ,” Rhodey said. “But you were busy letting Sunset Bain crawl all over you.”

Tony frowned, wondering what the correlation was, then it dawned on him and he stared at Rhodey in surprise. “You were jealous?”

“You know, for a genius, you’re kind of dumb,” Rhodey said with a snort of amusement. “I don’t know precisely when I stopped thinking of you as a kid, except I think it was not long after your seventeenth birthday party. I tied myself into several knots about it because you were _fourteen_ when we met and I felt creepy.”

“But…” Tony began. “You’re… _you_. You could never be creepy.”

“Momma sorted me out,” Rhodey said simply. “But I sure as hell wasn’t going to really think about it until you were eighteen. But then there was Sunset and then Ty and then…” He waved a hand. “So, I figured it had just been a crush and it had passed.”

“No!” Tony yelped then he blushed. “I mean, it was a crush, but it didn’t go away. Just… changed.” He blinked. “So… you _don’t_ want to get divorced?”

Rhodey’s put-upon sigh was ruined by his smile. “No, dumbass, I don’t want to get divorced. But I would like to do the whole dating thing, even if it would be doing things kind of out of order.”

Tony blushed and nodded. “Yes! I mean, yeah, I’d like that.” He paused and pouted a little. “Does that mean we can’t have sex? Because it kind of feels like it was pretty good but I don’t remember and… and I don’t want to wait to find out.”

The next thing he knew, he been tipped over and was lying on the bed with a grinning Rhodey leaning over him. “Well, we _are_ on our honeymoon.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so timelines for this AU fic since Rhodey wasn't quite capable of being completely coherent. 
> 
> \- Tony was fourteen when they met. Rhodey was eighteen.  
> \- Tony was fifteen when Rhodey realised Tony had a crush on him. Rhodey figured it was just because of the way Tony had been brought up (affection-starved) so he ignored it and Tony got better at hiding it. Rhodey did not think of Tony as anything other than his little brother at this time.  
> \- Tony was seventeen when Rhodey realised that maybe his feelings for Tony weren't quite as brotherly as he'd thought and he freaked out. His mother helped him work it all out and he decided he wasn't going to even think about it again until Tony was eighteen. The fact he was often away on deployment helped.  
> \- Tony turns eighteen, Rhodey comes back for the party and... yeah, Sunset. Then Tiberius Stone and many others. Rhodey figures it was nothing and he puts whatever he was feeling aside. Or tries to anyway. They both pine ridiculously.  
> \- Tony's 22 in this fic and has been around the block a few times.


End file.
